"There is nothing more pleasant than cruising on a boat with the whole family."
Letter from Empress Catherine the Great

Saturday, January 26, 2013

It's Such A Big Ocean

I have been enjoying the blog published by Bob of "Pandora," a Saga 43 like "ILENE" at sailpandora.com. Bob, among his many other talents, is a good writer and a good photographer. It is such a pleasure to read his ebullient reports on the things he is experiencing for the first time and that we experienced last winter: The blueness and clarity of the water, the weather-wise eye one must maintain, the balmy temperatures, his wife, Brenda's reactions to their first overnight passage together, etc.

But his reports bring home once again, in case anyone might otherwise forget it, how big the ocean is. Pandora is sailing essentially the reciprocal of the course that ILENE sailed  last winter -- headed for Georgetown, Great Exuma Island, in the Bahamas, where they plan to greet their sons who are flying down. But so often they are staying at different spots compared to us. On the way from the Northeast to Florida, they stayed in different anchorages, more anchorages than marinas, so even if we both stayed in the same town, it was in different spots, except in Charleston, and there we visited different historic places, museums, etc. It is like the six blindfolded sages of India who examine an elephant. One touches the side and says it is a wall; another says the leg is a tree, the tail is a rope, the ear is a fan, etc.

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida they stayed at a marina a couple miles up a river. We had planned to go there but stayed in lake Sylvia, which they sailed past. They skipped Bimini and the Berrys and in New Providence (Nassau) they were anchored north of Rose Island while we stayed at a marina on the main island. We skipped Allen Key but we both experienced Warderick Wells. And so it goes.  We spent a lot of time on the route, and there are so many stops along the way that remain uncharted territory for us. It's a big Ocean.  Smooth sailing, Bob and Brenda!

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